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The Normative Power of the EU in Neighbourhood Democratization Within the Framework of the ENP a Case Study on Armenia

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The Normative Power of the EU in Neighbourhood Democratization Within the Framework of the ENP a Case Study on Armenia LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY The Normative Power of the EU in neighbourhood democratization within the framework of the ENP A case study on Armenia Svetlana Osipova Master Thesis, 30 ECTS LIU-IEI-FIL-A--10/00867--SE Department of IEI Master in International and European Relations Supervisor: Prof. Per Jansson September 2010 ABSTRACT Through the effective democratization process during the 2004 enlargement the European Union has exercised what many scholars have regarded as „normative power‟. The biggest enlargement in the history of the EU has extended the borders of the Union towards new neighbourhood of democratically and economically unstable states. Less willing to accept new members and yet willing to export its norms and values in order to secure a stable neighbourhood, the EU launched its European Neighbourhood Policy with the ambition to create well governed „ring of friends‟. Following the success of the use of positive conditionality during the enlargement, the ENP was created based on the same logic, however, unlike the enlargement policies, the ENP lacks the membership carrot. This thesis analyzes the ability of the EU to promote and diffuse its democratic norms and values through the ENP and to have a „normative impact‟ beyond its borders. The results of the case study on Armenia show that though the ENP has a strong rhetoric and ambition in promoting normative values, and though it has succeeded in norm and rule transfer, it did not succeed in norm-adoption and implementation by the target states. KEYWORDS EU Democratization Europeanization Normative power EU ENP Armenia 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ 2 TABLES AND BOXES ................................................................................................................................. 4 ABBREVIATIONS ...................................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTORY PART ..................................................................................................................... 6 1.1 Background and the research problem .................................................................................. 6 1.2 Research design and methods ................................................................................................ 8 2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ........................................................................................................... 9 2.1 The conceptualization of democracy and democratization ................................................... 9 2.1.1 Democracy ...................................................................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Democratization ............................................................................................................ 10 2.2 EU as a normative power ...................................................................................................... 14 2.3 Theories on the Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe ........................................ 16 2.3.1 Europeanization ............................................................................................................ 17 2.3.2 The external incentives model ....................................................................................... 18 2.3.3 Alternative explanatory models .................................................................................... 20 3. THE EUROPEAN UNION DEMOCRACY PROMOTION ..................................................................... 22 3.1 The EU as an actor of democracy promotion ....................................................................... 22 3.2 EU’s definition of democracy and democracy promotion .................................................... 23 3.3 Methods and instruments of EU democracy promotion ...................................................... 24 4. EUROPEANIZATION AND EUROPEAN NEIGHBOURHOOD POLICY ................................................ 29 4.1 Europeanization .................................................................................................................... 29 4.2 Historical background and objectives of the ENP ................................................................. 29 5. CASE STUDY: ARMENIA ................................................................................................................. 32 5.1 Armenia as a unit of analysis ................................................................................................ 32 5.2 Brief history of Armenian nation and democratic traditions ................................................ 33 5.2 The collapse of the Soviet Armenia and the democratic liberalization of the Republic of Armenia ............................................................................................................................................. 34 3 5.3 Political Reforms and democratic transition between 1990-98 ........................................... 36 5.4 Challenges to the democratization process .......................................................................... 39 5.5 Armenia’s foreign policy ....................................................................................................... 41 6. EU – ARMENIA RELATIONS ........................................................................................................... 44 6.1 The development of the EU- Armenia relations ................................................................... 44 6.2 Partnership and Co-Operation Agreement ........................................................................... 45 6.2 The European Neighbourhood Policy ................................................................................... 46 7. DEMOCRATIC PROGRESSIVIST IN ARMENIA ................................................................................. 48 7.1 The democratic progressivism in Armenia under the EU monitoring .................................. 48 7.2 Democracy in Figures ............................................................................................................ 50 7.3 Armenia’s democratic development 1999-2009 .................................................................. 52 8. ANALYSIS: APPLYING THE MODELS ............................................................................................... 58 8.1 The Normative nature of the ENP and its norm transmission .............................................. 58 8.2 The External Incentives Model: Conditionality ..................................................................... 58 8.3 The Social-learning model ..................................................................................................... 62 8.4 The outcome of the analysis of the case study ..................................................................... 64 9. RESULTS......................................................................................................................................... 67 9.1 Conclusive remarks ............................................................................................................... 67 9.2 Critical reflection on the weaknesses of the ENP ................................................................. 69 9.3 ‘Normative power EU’? ......................................................................................................... 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................................... 76 TABLES AND BOXES Table 1: Democratic development in Armenia 1999-2010(Freedom House)..........................50 Table 2: Democratic development in Armenia 1999-2010(FH Nations in Transit)................50 Table 3: Democratic development in Armenia 2006, 2008(Economist intelligence unit).......51 Box 1: Overview of case study conditions and results............................................................64 4 ABBREVIATIONS ANM Armenian National Movement CEEC Central and East European Countries CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CIS Commonwealth of Independent States CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization EC European Community EIDHR European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights ENP European Neighbourhood Policy ENPI European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument EP European Parliament EU European Union IDEA International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance IR International Relations NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NGO Non-governmental Organization NIP National Indicative Programme PCA Partnership and Cooperation Agreement OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe PHARE Poland and Hungary Action for Restructuring of the Economy TACIS Technical Assistance for the Commonwealth of Independent States UN United Nations 5 1. INTRODUCTORY PART 1.1 Background and the research problem “We are also committed to developing ever deeper ties and bridges of cooperation with our neighbours and to share the future of this community of values with others beyond our shores”. (European Council 2003) The effectiveness of European Union (EU) democracy promotion has recently become a subject of many studies. The majority of the scholars agree that the most powerful and effective instrument of the EU in democracy promotion was the prospective of becoming an EU
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